You can see that their respective presidential runs haven't really helped the two Minnesota Republican heavyweights, Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann. The trend lines only show incremental change though, not significant erosion. That's due to both of them already being at or close to the "Kennedy line."

(Ed: The term "Kennedy Line" refers to the share of the vote that Mark Kennedy got in the 2006 Senate race, the Kennedy line is essentially the GOP's floor)

There's nothing about any poll of this race that's been done over that last year plus that has shown any real deviation from these numbers. And there's no silver lining for any of the GOP candidates when you delve into the crosstabs, 59% of Independents approve of Amy Klobuchar and even 32% of Republicans do.

She has what you call "Cross-over appeal," and she's worked very hard to cultivate that appeal. And these are the dividends that pays.

---

Also polled by PPP, the 2014 Senate race and it paints a rosier re-election picture for Al Franken than I was expecting.

Tim Pawlenty polled the best against Amy of anyone they put against her and he was still down 15 points. He's only within six points of Al however, which tells you everything you need to know about why Amy isn't attracting more substantial candidates. All of the GOPers with designs on a Senate seat will wait for 2014, in a non-presidential year, with a much more vulnerable Al Franken running.

That said, he's already approaching 50% against the best the Minnesota GOP has to offer, so he may not be that vulnerable after all.